


Leaving the nest

by Cursedkaze



Series: The Bat and the Bird 'Verse [2]
Category: Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Assassin!Dick AU, Canon Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Court of Owls!Dick AU, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Talon!Dick au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 12:36:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17849603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cursedkaze/pseuds/Cursedkaze
Summary: Dick Grayson is eight when he watches his parents die. He is eight when he runs away from home for the first time, into the sooty maw of the black-pin city. He is eight when he first meets the monster who becomes his new father, the monster they called the Talon.





	1. Prologue

Dick Grayson is eight years old when he watches his parents die.

It’s strange how it sticks in his memory; he remembers the fear on his mother’s face as she throws him to safety, the snap of the rope breaking, then…nothing but the crack of them hitting the ground. In the times to come he remembers every tiny sliver of time in razor-sharp detail, but when it happens he sees nothing but the aftermath, their bodies like an over-sharpened photograph and the crowd like the faint lines of faded ghosts in the background. In that moment it seemed like there was nothing in the world but him and them, in the spreading pool of blood, and he is more alone than he has ever been.

He screams until his voice cracks and breaks in his throat in some primal pathetic attempt to shatter the nightmare. He doesn’t remember much about what happened to him next; it had been as distant and unreal as a fever dream. He moves in a daze like a sleepwalker through the following police interviews and the investigation that follows. None of it seemed real, it felt simultaneous sharp and blurred, like a fever dream.

He is lying in bed, staring blankly at the wall, when it filters in like a seeping cold. He holds the pillow over his face to deafen the sound as he screams and cries until he is out of both breath and tears.

He gets no sleep that night, or the next, until he passes out more than fall asleep and sees the moment repeated behind his eyelids. Time seems to be stuck in a loop like Groundhog Day; every night he relives their death and every day is exactly the same.

His family status is a snarled mess; both his parents didn’t have any close relatives to take him in and the thought of being sent away from home to live with a second cousin he’d never met haunted him. The Circus was his family, but they weren’t blood-related, and that was all the law seemed to care about. How hard his parents fought to escape their families didn’t matter to the lawyers, all they cared about was whose DNA he had. They died in Gotham so Gotham law applied…somewhere.

The police won’t let them leave. Corrupt Gotham cops, a fact of life, but one Dick never saw becoming part of _his_ life. Surreal like actors from a TV show playing the part.

They were travelers and like water when they weren’t free to move they became stagnant. No performances, no chance to move on, no progress in catching the killer…Every day exactly the same.

Dick…fades. He becomes like a ghost in the background of an over-sharpened photograph. He had been a happy child; now he was a hollow shell. His body merely…existed, coasting on the bare minimum of brain power. His mind was stuck in a loop, reliving the same _second_ so closely he could almost see the frames.

It could have been days, weeks, or _years,_ until something breaks the pattern. The case is discarded as an accident due to poor equipment maintenance, he’s allowed to stay with the circus following his parent’s wills. The circus is allowed to leave.

Mr. Haly wraps his lips around the barrel of a shotgun and eats a bullet. He leaves the real story in his suicide note. Dick finds it before the cops can.

Just like that he’s pulled back into his body again. For the first time in what feels like an eternity he can feel himself breathing again. The yellowing paper edged with blood splatter tells the true story. It gives a name, the name of a _murderer._ The note shakes in his hands, his fingers crumpling the paper at the edges. The world is still shifted, skewed and unreal, but rather than fleeing he leans into the nightmare. Mr. Haly’s head made a Pollock painting over the wall. The blood feels like red paint under his shoes. Fake, like a Halloween haunted house.

He puts the note back before the cops arrive. He perches in the high part of the caravans and watches them burn the note. When they leave the circus Dick Grayson leaves too.

Cities for him never felt real; they were just the background to the fairgrounds and sometimes they went shopping. The idea of them as separate independent places where people lived never quite clicked. Gotham in particular felt more like a film set than a place; sometimes he’d see someone and be surprised they were in color instead of black-and-white.

He wandered dead-eyed through the alleyways, no longer a bright baby bird but something as dull and dead as the concrete. Like a ghost tethered to the mortal plane, like a balloon on a string, he drifts with the wind. No-one notices him. No-one cares. He’s just a ghost in the background to them.

Eight-year-old boys don’t plan murder.

The overheard conversations filter through his ears like summer rain, leaving the facts. He has a name, he finds the place.

He carries in his backpack the 12-inch carving knife with the walnut handle.

Simple problem solving, cold, logical, detached, but more like a compulsion than a plan. He should be angry, he should have the rage of a legendary hero killing a god, but he doesn’t. Everything feels too unreal for him to be angry, or sad, or any of the emotions he should be feeling. He doesn’t feel like an avenging angel striking down evil. He doesn’t feel like a hunter tracking down a monster. He doesn’t feel afraid, he should feel afraid. He’s likely going to be dead soon after all, but death has stopped being something that scares him. He’s gone from never seeing death to seeing too much of it far too quickly. He’s deeply aware of how quickly a human body became a lump of bleeding meat; it holds no horror for him now. It was just a thing, as false as everything else in this nightmare world. Thin somehow, like the weight had been taken out of the act.

He listens, he waits, he wanders from place to place. He doesn’t know how long it takes, he hasn’t gone back to rest at the Circus but he doesn’t sleep any more, just close his eyes for a few hours until his body feels rested again.

Maybe it would be harder if Anthony Zucco was trying to lay low. If he’d run, if he’d hid, Dick wouldn’t have been able to find him. He wasn’t hiding though, no, he was proud, he was _bragging_ about making an Example outta them circus folk.

A snapping rope. A crack of bones breaking on the ground.

That’s all it had taken for them to be gone. All Dick had left of them was the memory.

A snap. A crack.

He takes the carving knife out of his bag. The moonlight shines on the freshly sharpened edge. He was a Haly’s Circus kid, he knew how to sneak, he knew how to hide. His footsteps are silent on the ground as he drifts forwards in a daze. He’s found his target, he knows the man’s face now, knows how fast a man becomes meat.

He knows he’ll only get one shot at this. Surprise will only carry him so far. He’s followed the rumors, the fragments of overheard conversations here, to this place in the dark. The lights are on inside, shedding warm golden light like sunshine through the windows to the street outside. He stays out of the light, creeping past it on three limbs with the knife held at the ready.

The door is not just unlocked but hanging half open with the room to admit someone much larger than an eight-year-old. Dick slips through easily, immediately accessing if he needs to hide or charge.  The room beyond is abandoned so he hugs the walls, keeping his steps silent and keeping cover close to hide at any sign of movement. There is none. No movement, no signs of life at all…

It’s then he sees the blood on the ground. It’s a long red _smear,_ like someone had dragged a massive lump of bleeding meat across the ground. It starts halfway into the room and carries on to a door open just a crack.

It seems unreal, a scene from a horror movie, not something that could happen in real life to a real person. Dick Grayson pushes the door open. It slides open easily.

The blood smear continues and flows into a gleaming pool of crimson shining under the single light, lapping gently against the opposite wall. The pool is fed from red rivulets running down from the corpse pinned to the wall like a butterfly in a collection. It has poured like a waterfall from the dark red crescent of a throat so slit the white of the bone of the spine shines in its depths. Eyes wide with horror and mouth frozen in a soundless scream, the face pinned back by its ears belonged to Tony Zucco, and he isn’t alone. There is one other in the room.

There, his head cocked to his side as if admiring his handiwork, was the Boogeyman.

Dick wasn’t a baby. He was eight years old; he was a big kid, practically an adult. He was too old to believe that if you didn’t eat your vegetables the Boogeyman would take you away, but he was also young enough to think that monsters must be real because he was looking at one. The Boogeyman was tall and his skin was black as coal and when the Boogeyman turns to look at _him_ the Boogeyman’s eyes were burning red lights just like in Momma’s stories.

Dick lets the knife hang loosely at his side. It’s not like it would do anything against a monster anyway, it never did in movies. The Boogeyman tilts his head to the side, looking over him just like he had the hanging corpse. The Boogeyman steps forwards and his black feet make no sound as he pads across the ground towards Dick.

‘Well this is it.’ Dick thinks as the Boogeyman looms over him, his red eyes looking down at him. ‘I’m going to die.’

The Boogeyman crouches and his red eyes look into Dick’s soul. He has no mouth, but he breathes out, a long nearly mechanical rasping as if from the lungs of a corpse. The red eyes go to the knife in his hand then back to his face. The Boogeyman reaches out his hand. His fingers are long curling black claws.

Dick takes it.

The Boogeyman’s blackened fingers curl around his own. He leads Dick closer to the corpse hanging impaled against the wall. His other hand curls around Dick’s other hand, tightening his grip on the knife.

“Pick your spot.” The Boogeyman says. “Strike true.” His voice is soft, but dead, almost like a corpse’s voice.

Dick breathes out in a soft shuddering sigh, tightens his grip on the knife and strikes true.

The knife sinks into the dead flesh, he tears it loose with a sucking sound and plunges it in again, and again and again. Dick realizes he is screaming, a long, raw sound of pure anger as he cuts deeper and deeper into the hanging dead flesh like it’s a Sunday roast. The scream carries on until he runs out of air and the desperate inhale becomes an uncontrollable sobbing. The knife blade scrapes down until it lodges in bone and slips from his trembling fingers. He curls up on the ground, crying. The Boogeyman’s hand rests on his shoulder until the sobbing stops and he manages to look up again. The monster is still staring down at him with blank red eyes and no expression on its bird-like face.

“It’s done.” The Boogeyman says. “You have your revenge.”

He turns back to the body.

“Watch.” He orders and pours a vial over the handle of the knife. It smokes as the acid eats into it, thoroughly obliterating any prints that might have been left on it. There’s nothing left that could trace the body back to him.

“You’re safe.” The Boogeyman says and turns towards the door. “I will keep the secret.”

“I should have…I would have…” Dick can’t get out the words, they slip back down his throat in the wash of tears.

“No.” The Boogeyman says and bends in closer. He crooks one claw of a finger and catches a tear running down Dick’s face. The droplet shines briefly against the edge of the metallic claw. “You would have tried and you would have died.”

“Why did you kill him?” Dick demands to know with tears running down his cheeks.

The Boogeyman’s glowing red eyes look down at him.

“I had to.” He says. The black claws clench, crushing the tear against his palm. He steps out the door, walking away from the hanging body without a second glance.

Dick rushes to follow him. The Boogeyman stops.

“No.” he says. “You stay.”

“Everyone knows Boogey’s steal kids.” Dick points out. “I can be ya helper, I’m strong!”

“The Boogeyman takes children to eat them.” Dick wonders if he is imagining the trace of amusement in the Boogeyman’s voice.

“Only bad ones.” Dick replies.

“I am fairly certain you have been told talking to strangers is bad.” The Boogeyman replies as he starts to walk again.

“Please…” Dick hates how his voice quavers. “Let me come with you.”

The Boogeyman pauses. His head turns back towards him, the glowing red eyes look down at him, and twists its head to the side in a bird-like motion. The Bogeyman breathes out in a dry mechanical rasping.

“You can’t.” The Boogeyman rests his clawed hand on his shoulder. “I am a monster, child. I must remain unseen, thus those who have seen me must die. I am giving you a chance I never had. This is a dark blood-soaked path I walk. Go home.” He orders. “Be strong. Live a good life. Honor them. Pray we never meet again.”

“Please.” Dick’s voice wavers on the edge of crying. “Don’t make me go back there. I can’t…I can’t…” his hands curl into fists. “I’m not strong enough.”

The Boogeyman’s arm wraps around him and it takes a moment before Dick realizes it’s a hug. He buries his face against the monster’s cold chest, the tears flowing freely down his face. He tilts Dick’s face up until he’s looking into the burning red eyes past his tears.

“What do you want from me Richard Grayson?” He asks softly and Dick doesn’t question how the Boogeyman knows his name.

“I need to get stronger.” Dick whispers. “Strong enough to protect everyone myself.”

“What will you do for this power?” The Boogeyman asks him. “Would you kill for it? Would you die for it?”

“I’ll do anything.” Dick meets the burning red eyes fearlessly, aware he is making a deal with the creature of his deepest nightmares. “ _Anything! Please!_ ”

The Boogeyman’s head crooks to the side like a bird’s as it watches him.

“Return to the Circus then.” The Boogeyman tells him. “ _Be_ strong. Strength is a choice. You have made it.”

The Boogeyman removes his hand and turns to leave again. He pauses in the door, his claws curling around the doorframe. They bite into the cheap wood, leaving rough gashes in it.

“I’ll be watching.” He says and steps forwards into shadows. “I will always watch over you…”

When Dick tries to scramble after him the Boogeyman has vanished back into the darkness, leaving him alone in the empty alleyway.

It seems like a dream and Dick shoves his hands into his pockets, watching the morning mist curl from the pavement before he remembers he’s standing next to a crime scene. He quickly makes like the rats in the dumpster and scurries back home, hoping that no-one has seen him. He doubts if anyone did that they’d believe the Boogeyman was the one who killed him; he didn’t quite believe it himself and he had been there.

Dick wanders back in a dream-walker’s daze. It seems a good way to get killed in Gotham but there isn’t a flicker of trouble and he remembers the Boogeyman’s promise. He doesn’t feel he really exists again until his feet hit the soil of the lot and he sees the tents around him and he is _home_.

He falls to his knees and cries.


	2. Chapter 2

The circus moves on and soon that time in his life all feels like a bad dream. The monster fades from his memory until he’s sure it had just been part of the dream, just another waking nightmare of a boy half-mad with grief. That time becomes just another bad dream, something that wakes him with cold shivers less and less as time goes on.

The first night he wakes up without the snap of the rope breaking echoing in his dreams he wakes up crying, not sure if his tears are from gratitude for one night without nightmares or out of guilt he’s starting to forget. By then he’s learnt how to cry in silence so as not to wake anyone else up. They’d only worry about him and they needed their sleep. He didn’t want to be more of a burden on them than he already was. He wasn’t a baby, he didn’t need a hug every time he had a bad dream any more.

The circus is bought by a new owner and it moves on from Gotham. Legalities are..strange, a lot of people joined the circus to escape their parents, but not all of them had paid to have their children formally disowned. The idea of being claimed by some distant relative like he was garbage from the lost-and-found box made his blood boil. He had a godfather out there somewhere, but until they found him it was decided it was best for Dick to stay with the circus. He’s not alone, all his Aunts and Uncles gather around him and make sure he knows he’s safe and loved. Once the murders been declared cold cases the Gotham PD stopped pretending they cared about some gypsy brat.

The circus had not only lost their headline act, but their owner, and the new owner, a Mr. Strigi, was much stricter and less caring than Mr. Haly had been. He was a Gotham-born businessman who cared about making a profit and set very strict standards. He didn’t want the circus to go under just because they’d lost their headline act. Everyone had to work much harder to fill the gap left by the Flying Graysons and Dick wouldn’t let himself become a burden.

He dedicates himself whole-heartedly to the circus, aggressively determined to be helpful. He was going to be useful, he was going to keep everyone safe. He checks everything over obsessively with an eagle eye, determined that that no-one else was going to die the way the Graysons had. Nothing escaped him, everything was under his control. He was already there and helping before you knew you needed help with a cheerful grin that hid the steel in his eyes. Even as the image of the black-skinned monster with the glowing red eyes faded into the nightmares he remembered what the monster had said. Strength was a choice, he made the choice to be strong.

He threw himself into improving his performance with reckless abandon. He trained until his body ached, until his skin was leopard-skin-mottled with bruises, until his bones cracked, and his muscles tore, forcing himself past the limitations of his body. The pain is just pain, he can ignore it.

When he breaks his right arm during a performance he grits his teeth and finishes the set before he lets anyone know. He’s up at six the morning after, doing pull-ups one-handed and swearing next time he’ll do better. While his burning determination to improve often worried his family they had their own children to look after and couldn’t always spare the time to get him to stop. Sometimes he realized he was scaring them and dialed back his training to reassure them, but more often the burning desire to be stronger was overwhelming, and he just got better at hiding it. He wasn’t afraid of pain anymore. Things like broken bones were more of an inconvenience than something to be afraid of, an annoyance to be avoided because of how they limited his future performances.

The rest of the circus is worried when he wants to perform on the trapeze again but being strong is a choice and he isn’t going to let fear rule him. He goes to the river and forces himself to jump and fall again and again and again until his body no longer freezes at the sight of the drop stretching below him. After he’s learnt how to fall, he can learn how to fly.

Mr. Strigi is impressed. The new owner has all the charm of a magpie on the gallows, but he wants the circus to be successful. Dick has to fight hard for it but he’s persistent. Little by little he proves himself, proves he’s resilient and he’s not going to give up. The owner mentions to him that there are some places where a brave boy can earn some extra pocket money, and Dick finds the fighting pits. There’s a different kind of audience there but performing is in his blood. He learns how to roll with the punches while acting more hurt then he was, when to smile after being hit and spit your blood back at them, how to make the crowd cheer and howl for blood. He buys makeup with his winnings to cover up his wounds. Mr. Strigi doesn’t mind as long as he can still perform afterwards. Dick makes an enemy out of his own weakness and fights it to the death in front of a screaming crowd. His persistence is rewarded, he proves himself strong enough to handle a solo act as Robin.

The first time he stands under the circus lights and basks in the cheers of the crowd he feels strong.

Dick is eleven before he meets the man in the owl mask.

He hadn’t meant to steal the knife from the second-hand shop.

He’d just seen it and wanted it, then it was in his hand, then in his pocket, and he was back at the Circus before he’d realized he’d stolen it. The circus had moved on before he could return it, and by the time they came around again the little shop had already closed down. It was a small thing, a flick-knife with a wooden handle and a blade the dull grey of rainwater with the sharp edge shining like a line of lightning. He honed it by himself in secret, using the knife thrower’s whetstone. It wasn’t shaped like a throwing knife; the blade was small with a curve to it like the claw of a bird. It was a hawksbill pruning knife, a gardening tool used for trimming branches and carving wood. The smooth wooden handle fit perfectly into the palm of his hand and the folded blade could easily be hidden up a sleeve or tucked into his sock.

The fighting pit was strictly no weapons and Dick at least respected that, but he’d learnt after his first week that there weren’t rules _out_ of the pits. After he’d taken his first beating at the hands of a sore loser after another fight he’d learnt he couldn’t always rely on his fists. The claw slipped easily into his hand, sliding between his fingers for a quick slash in the dark, then retracted just as easily to slip down his arm or his belt or his neck if they searched him for weapons. It hasn’t been taken from him yet. He slashed fast enough they didn’t know what had hit them, a few had genuinely claimed it was a gypsy curse which had made him smile.

Sometimes Dick sits and watches it, opening and closing the blade as if mesmerized by the movement of the flash of steel, and wonders why he had taken it. He had just _needed_ it. He keeps the blade tucked away in his sleeve or down his shoe, but no matter where it is he feels the weight of it. Every time some dumb townie kids yell at them they’re gypsy thieves, every time he wins a fight and sees the surprise turn to hate in his opponent’s eyes, he knows it is there, ready and waiting to leap to his hand when he needs it. Even when he’s not using it he feels safer knowing it’s there for him.

The owner calling for him wasn’t unusual, he was young, but he was mature enough to have a solo act and that had to be organized.

Still there was something about this time that made the blade call to his hand, something intangible in the air that felt like the air in the fighting pits before a fight. No-one was watching but he could _taste_ the anticipation. Maybe it’s because they’re back in Gotham again, the black pin city, the hungry city. He feels the folded blade rest against his wrist and his sight seems sharpened as he opens the door to Mr. Strigi’s ‘office’.

Mr. Strigi looks up and smiles his insincere smile that makes him look like a gallows crow seeing a fresh prisoner being led to the noose. The owner was old, but he could be anything from forty to seventy, he looked like a mummy or something else that had been _preserved_. His steel grey hair is combed tightly back from his forehead.

There’s a guest too, dressed like he’s going to a wedding, or a funeral. That isn’t unusual, he was a headline act, he often got called in promote the circus to investors, but the mask the quest is wearing is very unusual. It isn’t a circus mask, or anything a fellow performer might wear. It’s a single white bowl-like plate of porcelain or bone china with the hint of a sharp nose and wide round eyes that throw the eyes of the wearer in dark shadows.

“Is this the one?” The masked man asks, the mask giving his voice a hint of hollow echo. He’s got a Gotham accent, the posh one, like Mr. Strigi.

“He is.” Mr. Strigi replies. “Dick, why don’t you introduce yourself to our guest.”

Dick smiles politely.

“Hello, I’m Dick Grayson.” He says in his ‘talking-to-promoters’ voice. “I perform here as Robin. Nice to meet you sir.”

He offers a hand to shake. The masked man doesn’t take it. Dick withdraws the hand without his smile faltering. The masked man shifts on the chair, leaning forward as his eyes focus on him.

“I’m the Recruiter for the Court of Owls.” The masked man introduces himself. Now that he mentions it the mask does look kinda like a bird if you squint (Dick doesn’t because that’s rude).

Dick smiles his ‘talking to promoters’ smile.

“I apologize, I’m not familiar with your organization.” He says with a careful politeness.

“You wouldn’t be.” For a moment Dick thinks he sees a flicker of light reflect off the eyes hidden in the shadowed eye sockets of the mask. The Recruiter appears to be closely appraising him. “We’ve been looking for a special child to join our organization.”

“I’m afraid I’m unable to perform at any other circus.” Dick says carefully, not wanting to offend the nice dressed man in the weird mask but the idea of performing for another circus makes his skin crawl. “My contract…”

“Not perform.” The masked man cuts him off and he stands. The light briefly sparkles off the diamonds in his gold cufflinks.

He looms over Dick with his eyes hidden in shadows.

“What do you know about owls?” The masked man asks him.

“They’re big birds, they only come out at night and they eat rats and spit up the bones.” Dick recites from memory before he realizes the last part probably isn’t appropriate for a recruiter.

“Do you think Gotham has a lot of rats?” The recruiter asks and Dick’s relieved he sounds amused rather than offended.

He nods before realizing that might be rude as well. The masked man laughs.

“Yes, it is regrettable but true that Gotham is infested with vermin.” He says with a disgust in his tone that makes Dick think he’s not talking about _real_ rats. “Diseased filth that crawls and breeds and infects our fair city and we…” There’s a sudden sharp click that makes Dick jump as the man behind the mask snaps his teeth. “We take that filth and strip away everything of worth until all that’s left is the bones. Do you understand what I mean?” He asks. “Do you know what I mean by rats?”

Dick nods carefully, sure now that he’s not talking about real animals. This feels dangerous, like a conversation he’s not supposed to be hearing, but Mr. Strigi’s just sitting there watching and he’s not getting in trouble. The masked man crouches to be at eye level with him and Dick sees the eyes shadowed by the mask, as cold and pitiless as any bird of prey.

“You’ve met the rats, haven’t you Dick?” The masked man asks. “That filth that crawls and ruins and corrupts. They took something important from you.”

Dick thinks of the snap of rope breaking. He thinks of the bleeding body of Tony Zucco pinned to the wall with knives. He thinks of cops burning a suicide note so they don’t have to investigate the confession in it.

He slowly nods.

“Use your words, Dick.” Mr. Strigi warns.

The masked man silences him with a wave of his hand without taking his eyes off Dick’s.

“My fellow owls and I want to get rid of the rats, Dick.” He says. “We want to crunch them up until there’s nothing left but bones, until they can’t pollute and corrupt and hurt anyone ever again.”

He offers his hand now, covered in a snow-white glove.

“To do that we need help, Dick. We need strong claws that can catch the rats and crush them before they can run away and infect others with their filth. The Owls need Talons strong enough to crush all the evil out of this world. We need a hero, no, a _champion._ It is not an easy task, only the best of the best will do, but you can crush evil in its nest before it has the chance to spread. Our Talons keep this city safe. Are you strong enough to do that, Dick?” He asks. “Are you strong enough to be our Talon?”

Dick slowly nods.

“I’m strong.” He says carefully and takes the masked man’s hand. “I know I’m strong. What…do you need me to do?”

“Prove it.” The masked man says and clicks his fingers.

A shadow grabs him by the shoulder and drags him backwards out of the room before he can blink. Sunlight hits him like a flash grenade as he is pulled out of the room back into the fairgrounds.

He twists, seeing that the hand holding his shoulder isn’t a hand at all but a scaly metallic shape like a black bird’s foot. Bladed claws six inches long and gleaming gold are biting into his shoulder, cutting through his shirt and into his skin enough for him to bleed, but not as hard as it _could_ be gripping. If the inhuman hand tightened it would be like being stabbed with five knives at once.

He manages to get a foot on the ground and pushes back hard, towards the dragging grip. He matches the momentum enough to roll free. His other foot hits the ground and he reverses his momentum, darting _in_ towards the figure.

Instantly the knife leaps to Dick’s hand, the blade gleaming as the shadow grabs him by the arm and he lashes out with his other hand. Dick brings the blade up into the monster’s ribs. It shatters, leaving him holding the wooden handle and looking up into a pair of glowing red eyes in a jet-black face. It brings back the memory so hard he can smell the blood and taste the tears.

For a moment he’s paralyzed, the memories and nightmares seeming to dim the sun. His breath feels freezing in his lungs as he looks at the Boogeyman. The blood running down his shoulder is proof that this isn’t a nightmare or that strange almost hallucinatory state he’d been in after his orphaning. The creature he’d told himself was just his imagination is _here,_ stark under the midday sun. He sees what he didn’t see back then, that the black bird-like face wasn’t a face at all. It was a mask.

He can’t tell if he’s relieved or not that the Boogeyman was probably human.

“First lesson.” The Bogeyman says. “Never carry only one blade.”

He flexes clawed fingers. The sunlight makes the blood at the clawtips shine red. Dick drops the now useless handle of his knife; it had served him well through the years, but it hadn’t even scratched the Boogeyman. He uncertainly raises a fist against a man who had broken a knife on his chest. The Boogeyman turns his head to the side like a curious bird, an Owl now that Dick thinks about it, one with big round red eyes and a black metal beak. He lowers his fist and the Boogeyman lets his shoulder go.

“So…you’re real.” Dick says awkwardly, looking at the monster he’d seen as a child with fresh eyes.

The Boogeyman surprises him by grabbing him and pulling him into a fiercely tight hug. The masked man’s arms take a death grip close around him, the monster desperately mumbling something in Polari that sounds like ‘forgive me’ under his breath. Dick feels the cold black armor dig into his chest as the Boogeyman’s clawed fingers stroke his hair, smearing his own blood through it.

“I am so proud of you.” He says, then lets go, the bright red eyes of the mask looking down at him. “Look at you, you’ve grown up so strong.”

Dick finds himself tightly hugging the Boogeyman back. He didn’t think about it, his body just moved on its own to wrap his arms around the dark armor. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut, feeling the tears starting to well up in them. Everything, every single feeling he’s been suppressing since first seeing his parents fall suddenly crashes down on him. It feels like drowning in ice water and falling off the high beam all at once. The Boogeyman holds him again as he cries, and for that moment he feels like he’s eight again and nothing has changed.

“I did it.” Dick says, his voice hoarse from the tears. “I got strong, like you said.”

“You’ve been strong, you’ve been so very strong Dick.” The masked man whispers to him as he holds him close. “But what they ask of you will require you to be even stronger still. When we first met I asked you what you would do to be strong enough to protect everyone. Do you remember what you said?”

“…I said I’d do anything…” Dick says quietly.

“Is that still true? It’s okay to be scared Dick. it’s not too late to say no, you can still escape this curse. The Court can find another child.” The Boogeyman tells him. “You won’t be punished for refusing.”

“No, I know I can do it, I want to do it!” Dick says, looking up at him with eyes still red-rimmed from crying but unwavering in their determination. “If it’s going to protect people, if it’s going to keep everyone here safe, I have to do it! N…No-one else is strong enough.”

His voice catches as he thinks of the other kids in the circus. They were happy, they had families who loved them and would miss them if they went. He…He was alone. He was the only one who could make the sacrifice.

The Boogeyman draws back enough for Dick to see the glowing eyes.

“You would be giving up everything.” He says sadly.

“…It’s worth it to save people.” Dick says and he means it. He loves his family. He loves the circus, he would do anything to protect them. What happens to him isn’t important.

“You are so brave Dick, braver then I was.” The Boogeyman says softly and gently moves a curl of dark hair out of his face with one clawed finger. “They would be proud of you.” His other hand squeezes Dick’s shoulder. “It is going to hurt.” He says sadly.

“I’m not scared!” Dick frowns. “I’ve been hurt loads of times and never cried _once,_ honest!”

“…Forgive me for what I am about to do.” The Boogeyman whispers, looking up at something Dick can’t see before taking Dick’s hand and turning the burning red eyes back down on him. “You will be my hatchling. I will take care of you, as long as you obey me you will not come to harm, I swear it.” The Boogeyman tells him. “And when the time comes…You will be my successor. The road I walk is long and full of suffering but without it misery would be inflicted tenfold on the innocent. By your sacrifice they are saved. Are you ready?”

Dick can only nod, his throat is dry.

“I am the Talon.” The Bogeyman tells him. “This is my only name.”

He offers a clawed hand, a gauntlet, a _glove,_ not the hand of a monster and Dick takes it.

“…What’s your name?” The Bogeyman asks him.

“Dick…Dick Grayson.”

The Bogeyman pauses, seemingly staring at nothing with its burning red eyes.

“No, you have no name.” The Talon says. “You belong to the Court now.”

Darkness claims Dick’s vision in a heartbeat. He feels himself falling forward and the Talon catching him as if it is happening to a stranger. Later he finds out the Talon’s claws were poisoned to make this abduction easier.  He misses the Talon gathering him in his arms like a sleeping child as he returns to the Owls and informs them he accepts their candidate for further training. It was one of the few privileges granted to the Talon, to be given the chance to choose their own executioner. He knows his opinion mattered little to his masters, if he refused they would find another to train and another to train them.

Dick Grayson disappears and is officially declared a missing person within a year.


End file.
